Effectiveness of enzymes on structural, functional and creep-recovery behavior of freshly prepared meringue’s batter using liquid egg albumen

Abstract

In this research, the impacts of varying concentration of phospholipase A2 (PLA), protease and lipase enzyme-treated liquid egg white (LEW) were prepared using meringue batters. The gelling physico-chemical, and rheological properties such as rheological creep-recovery compliance behavior, color value (L*, a*, b*, ∆E*, Chroma, Hue and WI), gelling strenght, pH value, gelling index as TPA parameter and specific density of freshly prepared meringue batter were analyzed. The specific density of meringue batter of control (0.49 ± 0.01) was significantly decreased (P < 0.05) after enzyme treatments of PLA (0.39 ± 0.01), lipase (0.33 ± 0.01), and protease (0.37 ± 0.01). Also, the enzymatic treatment significantly decreased the b* values from − 0.08 ± 0.07 to − 0.76 ± 0.04, − 0.70 ± 0.06, and − 0.73 ± 0.03, respectively. The Burgers model was used to characterize rheological behavior of enzyme treated and freshly prepared meringue samples. Creep-recovery responses of samples were satisfactory (R2 > 0.99) for evaluation of creep-recovery behavior. This research points out the efficacy of lipase pre-treated LEW in meringue preparation on improving functionality such as batter density and gelling properties.